The present invention relates to computer user interfaces and, more particularly, but not exclusively to a system and apparatus for copying images between computer applications.
In human-computer interaction, cut and paste or copy and paste is a user interface paradigm for transferring text, data, files or objects from a source to a destination. Most ubiquitous is the ability to cut and paste sections of plain text.
The term “cut and paste” derives from the traditional practice in manuscript editing in which paragraphs were literally cut from a page with scissors and physically pasted onto another page.
This traditional practice was standard practice as late as the 1980s. Editing scissors with blades long enough to cut an 8½″-wide page were available at stationery stores. The advent of photocopiers made the practice easier and more flexible.
The cut-and-paste paradigm was widely popularized by Apple™ in the Lisa™ and Macintosh™ operating systems and applications. It was mapped to a key combination consisting of a special control key held down while typing the letters X (for cut), C (for copy), and V (for paste).
The above key combinations were later adopted by Microsoft in Windows™. Common User Access (in Windows™ and OS/2™) also uses combinations of the Insert, Del, Shift and Control keys.
Some environments allow cutting and pasting with a computer mouse (by drag and drop, for example).
The first multiple clipboard utility Copy-Paste appeared on the Macintosh in 1989 and extended the keyboard concept for each clipboard so that holding down the command key+c+ any number (0-9) would copy to a separate clipboard. CopyPaste later displayed and allowed editing hundreds of clipboards and added a clipboard recorder or stack of the most recently made cuts or copies.
Copy-and-paste refers to the popular, simple method of reproducing data from a source application to a destination application, which is only different from cut and paste in that the original source data is not deleted or removed as it is with the latter process.
Copying can be performed on most graphical user interface systems using the key combinations such as Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Ins, or by using some other method, such as a context menu or a toolbar button.
Once data have been copied into the area of memory referred to as the clipboard, they can be pasted into a destination using the key combinations Ctrl+V or Shift+Insert, or methods dependent on the system.
Macintosh computers use the key combinations Command+C and Command+V. In the X Window System, selecting text copies it to a clipboard, while middle-clicking pastes.
The popularity of this method stems from its simplicity and the ease with which data can be moved between various applications without resorting to permanent storage.
By now, the cut-and-paste paradigm (or copy-and-paste) is a universal paradigm, used on a daily basis by most computer users.
Currently, there are many computer applications, which implement the cut-and-paste (or copy-and-paste) paradigm, as described in further detail hereinabove.
For example, TechSmith Inc. offers the Snag-It™ product. The Snag-It™ product allows a computer user to capture screen images of objects or entire screens, and copy the images from one computer document to another.
However with current products, the copy-and-paste operation is a multi step semiautomatic process. The user has to select the image in an application, as well as a target application that the image data is copied to.
Furthermore, the image data is temporarily stored in a file (or a clipboard), before the image is copied to the target application, and the access to the file (or a clipboard) has to be appropriately managed.
On most systems there is only one location in the clipboard, hence another cut operation overwrites the previously stored information. Multiple clipboard entries are provided by many UNIX text editors and some Windows™ clipboard manager programs that are available over the Internet.
With current systems, only when the user selects the target application, for the specific copy-and-paste operation, is the image data copied to the target application.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,269,389, to Ashe, filed on May 5, 1995, entitled “Method and system for controlling the copying and insertion of contents of documents”, describes a clipboard manager. The clipboard manager employs preemptive scheduling for access to contents of a clipboard region of memory in a computer.
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, a system devoid of the above limitations.